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ANA LIŢA
IHEU – Appignani Bioethics Center at the UN, New York
Abstract
This essay details how philosopher and author Iris Murdoch’s
central construct of “the Good” can best be conceived, first
drawing from Plato and developed in conversation with Kantian
thought (in sum, seeing the same problem in defining the
achievement of moral perfection as did Kant, but finding its
root and cure not in a defect of the “will,” but in the defect
of “perception”). Thus, Murdoch’s sense of “moral realism”
varies from the classical version, in that the Good is not a
function of human choice and will; it is rather an object of
knowledge, desire and love. Differences between Murdoch’s core
concern with defining what is good in humans versus what
practical-virtue ethicists define as good for humans are then
detailed. The essay concludes with Murdoch’s insights into the
unselfing process and ways in which they could be better
elaborated and applied.
Keywords: Murdoch, Plato,
Kantian ethics, the Good, unselfing, virtue ethics, moral
realism, will, perception
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